VIRTUAL SOLITAIRE
VIRTUAL SOLITAIRE
By Dawson Nichols
By Dawson Nichols
There will be one 10 minute intermission
There will be one 10 minute intermission
Welcome to a theater. On stage you will see no computers.
Unless you think of people as computers. That’s what the term
originally meant: a computer was a person who computed. Like a
writer was someone who wrote. Has that changed too? What
about actors? Synthespians?
Welcome to a theater. On stage you will see no computers.
Unless you think of people as computers. That’s what the term
originally meant: a computer was a person who computed. Like a
writer was someone who wrote. Has that changed too? What
about actors? Synthespians?
I stopped trying to provide answers a long time ago. Now I’m
content to ask questions. I only hope they’re interesting ones.
Stage Managers: Courtney Kessler and Laura Carpenter
Thanks to Dan Schuy & Cynthia Thompson.
Special thanks to my family for unending forbearance.
I stopped trying to provide answers a long time ago. Now I’m
content to ask questions. I only hope they’re interesting ones.
Stage Managers: Courtney Kessler and Laura Carpenter
Thanks to Dan Schuy & Cynthia Thompson.
Special thanks to my family for undeserved forbearance.
Why is it called ‘interfacing?’ Are online communities really
communities? Why is it that I spend more time with my computer
than my wife? Sometimes, when the light is just right, I see a
ghostly reflection of myself in the screen on my computer. Does
that mean something? Is it something I’ve forgotten, or am I
feeling nostalgic for a thing that never was? It seems to me that
addiction happens when people need to get away from themselves.
But everyone needs to do that sometimes. What makes some
people need it more than others? Can computers think? Will they
ever? Will they feel? Would it be frightening if they did? Are
computers the next stage in evolution? They do a lot of things
better than us. Are we antiquated – the homo habilis of our day?
Or do we have a symbiotic relationship with computers? Or
parasitic? If so, who is the parasite and who is the host? They say
you really know a foreign language when you dream in it. Is it
possible to have digital dreams? What does it do to people when
they spend so much time by themselves on computers? A great
deal of internet traffic is pornography. Is this a problem? Do
computers allow us to indulge our perversions without the social
governors that have always kept them in check? Does the ubiquity
of it somehow sanction it? And how is this changing us? What is
the difference between virtuality and reality? Why should we
privilege one over the other? What is emotion? It’s all neural
firings, right? Sensation too. Everything we know and think and
feel is all a wonderful ballet of chemicals and electricity in the
brain. Can that be right? And if that’s true, why should we value
‘actual’ experience more than… well, any other kind? If my brain
is convinced that I’m feeling something, aren’t I actually feeling it,
whether or not my body is involved? Will the body become a
spandrel – an outdated appendage of the brain? If it’s all about
computation, wouldn’t it be easier to do without a body? Why are
we fascinated with the bizarre? If you could live in a fantasy of
your own devising, would you? What would it be like? Would
you be alone? Is there a discrepancy between the promise of
technology and what it’s actually doing? We are products of our
environment, and more and more we are the creators of it as well.
Why is it called ‘interfacing?’ Are online communities really
communities? Why is it that I spend more time with my computer
than my wife? Sometimes, when the light is just right, I see a
ghostly reflection of myself in the screen on my computer. Does
that mean something? Is it something I’ve forgotten, or am I
feeling nostalgic for a thing that never was? It seems to me that
addiction happens when people need to get away from themselves.
But everyone needs to do that sometimes. What makes some
people need it more than others? Can computers think? Will they
ever? Will they feel? Would it be frightening if they did? Are
computers the next stage in evolution? They do a lot of things
better than us. Are we antiquated – the homo habilis of our day?
Or do we have a symbiotic relationship with computers? Or
parasitic? If so, who is the parasite and who is the host? They say
you really know a foreign language when you dream in it. Is it
possible to have digital dreams? What does it do to people when
they spend so much time by themselves on computers? A great
deal of internet traffic is pornography. Is this a problem? Do
computers allow us to indulge our perversions without the social
governors that have always kept them in check? Does the ubiquity
of it somehow sanction it? And how is this changing us? What is
the difference between virtuality and reality? Why should we
privilege one over the other? What is emotion? It’s all neural
firings, right? Sensation too. Everything we know and think and
feel is all a wonderful ballet of chemicals and electricity in the
brain. Can that be right? And if that’s true, why should we value
‘actual’ experience more than… well, any other kind? If my brain
is convinced that I’m feeling something, aren’t I actually feeling it,
whether or not my body is involved? Will the body become a
spandrel – an outdated appendage of the brain? If it’s all about
computation, wouldn’t it be easier to do without a body? Why are
we fascinated with the bizarre? If you could live in a fantasy of
your own devising, would you? What would it be like? Would
you be alone? Is there a discrepancy between the promise of
technology and what it’s actually doing? We are products of our
environment, and more and more we are the creators of it as well.